Helping St. Augustine take over

captbunch – posted 16 August 2007 16:23

We just bought a home and the front yard is half St. Augustine and half bermuda/nut grass. The St. Augustine is in the shade and the other is in almost full sun. I want to help the St. Augustine take over, any advice. Should I kill the bermuda/nut grass and then red sod, plant plugs, etc? Should I wait until the spring to do it or can I do it now? I live in San Antonio, TX. Thanks for the advice.

hankhill – posted 16 August 2007 16:32

Mowing at 3″ will favor the St. Augustine.

Bermuda is a formidable enemy, and will be difficult toeliminate–you’ll need to apply roundup several times and remove thetop layer of soil to get the rhizomes, and even then seeds can blow infrom neighboring land and create patches of Bermuda in yourSt. Augustine.

I would take it out as soon as possible, as long as you can resodimmediately (to avoid erosion). In the winter, you might want to keepit since you can’t resod then.

The nutgrass is much less of a problem; I manage it by hand pullingthe larger plants, or you can apply Manage or Image as selectiveherbicides.

[This message has been edited by hankhill (edited 16 August 2007).]

captbunch – posted 16 August 2007 19:22

I will be ok with the Saint Augustine if I plant it by the end of Sept? I just didn’t want to get too late and risk it not taking. Once I do resod, should I do everything or plant plugs?

hankhill – posted 16 August 2007 22:29

IIRC, the lawn stops growing in October, so I’d wait no later thanSept. 15 to give it time to root before winter. That’s just my guess,though.

As far as plugs or sod, sod is faster for large areas, buthas shallow roots. Plugs have deeper roots, but are small and usuallydone in a checkboard pattern that requires time to fill in. If youplugged a big section in late September, you’d be fighting weeds thewhole winter.

So, if you’re going to do a big area in late September, I’d sod ratherthan plug. If you’re just doing a small area, you could install theplugs at full density (no spaces) so it really wouldn’t matter.

Personally, I do everything myself for my lawn but lay large sectionsof sod. For that, I pay someone to do the hard work!

[This message has been edited by hankhill (edited 16 August 2007).]

TexanOne – posted 21 August 2007 02:03

Hankhill is correct – you can favor the existing St Augustine over the Bermudagrass by cutting high (3”+), and irrigating the mix until the St Augustine takes over. Generally, St Augustine has no problem completely overrunning and dominating a Bermudagrass lawn in a short time (1 – 2 years), even in full sun.

Late September is probably as close to the end of the growing season I would attempt to plant St Augustine – even in San Antonio. Because of your location, I would highly encourage you to try Floratam. Floratam St Augustine demonstrated excellent drought tolerant performance in non-irrigated test plots in Williamson County TX, and can be used in areas south and east of San Antonio. In fact, Floratam St Augustine was found to be very close to 609 Buffalograss in drought survival:

http://williamson-tx.tamu.edu/applied/Applied2001/Nonirrigatedturfgrassstudy2.html

I would suggest you use sod instead of plugs for a much faster coverage. Just patch the sod in as you would the plugs – spacing the sod blocks about 10 to 15 feet apart and you will have complete coverage in a few years.